


struck by lightning

by pallasjoanna



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: (sort of), 4+1 Things, Aged-Up Character(s), F/M, Marriage Proposal, a brief mention of blood (just in case)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 11:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5373137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasjoanna/pseuds/pallasjoanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Adrien Agreste proposed to Marinette Dupain-Cheng.</p>
            </blockquote>





	struck by lightning

**001.**

The first time Adrien proposes to Marinette, he doesn’t know she’s Marinette, he’s lying flat on the ground, and he realizes—

Ladybug leans over him, her kept hair falling out of its ribbons and onto her face. She’s close enough that he can count the freckles on scattered across the skin of her nose and cheeks, and with the sunlight striking her sky blue eyes just so, she’s a vision, and maybe, he should tell her that he’s already more than a little in love with her.

“Chat? Are you okay? Please be okay—“

And sometimes he thinks she _is_ a vision, here one second and gone the next, a haunting happy reminder of nights on rooftops, of wind in his hair, and of bright smiles and a warmth that he’s been looking for all his life. So before she vanishes, he struggles to sit up and, earning a nasty headache for his efforts, and blurts out whatever has been sitting at the bottom of his heart.

He puts on his best grin.

“Marry me,” he says, and then he freezes.

Dear lord. That was so not the thing he wanted to say.

Ladybug arches an eyebrow—not that he can see, but her mask does move in that specific direction, and she gives off an exasperated sigh.

Adrien fumbles for words. “Well—I—“ And he drops his face in his hands. Okay, all he wants is to confess his love for her and now his brain just had to make it all weird and awkward and he feels so betrayed. “That is—I mean—“

“I think—“ Ladybug says in a voice that brooks no argument. “You need to lie back down. Seriously, Chat Noir, how bad is that concussion?”

 

**002.**

The second time Adrien proposes to Marinette (sort of), their class has another movie project.

In contrast to their Halloween movie, the class has the luxury of more brief respites, and he’s pretty sure they’ve just staged another intervention involving Chloe, Sabrina, and a tale about a wedding ring prop that is very _very_ essential to the movie’s plot. (The actual prop is made of folder and tinfoil.) He’s trying to read through his part while Nino and Alya are arguing over last-minute changes to the script again.

In between Nino saying that the tragic romance is part of the plot with Alya accusing him of pandering to the masses (the both of them aren’t making any effort to lower their voice), Marinette slides into the empty seat beside him.

“So,” she starts, holding her own copy of the script. “Since it’s going to be a while before they get anywhere, I was thinking, we could try going over our lines.”

Several months ago, Adrien was still wondering at the reason why Marinette seems so open with the whole class—well, except for him. He’s never quite solved that particular mystery, but she doesn’t give him much room to wonder these days. If anyone ever asks him about what he thinks of Marinette Dupain-Cheng, he’s already got a whole list written out in his head already.

She’s warm, she’s confident, he knows she’s a very good best friend to Alya, and the whole class unanimously agrees that she’s the best class president they’ve ever had (not that Chloe would ever say it out loud). She’s sometimes forgetful, and sometimes she and Adrien manage to skip the same classes together by accident. She loves design, and her eyes light up a certain way whenever she gets an idea, and those same eyes narrow whenever she’s extremely focused on something. Marinette has the brightest smile he’s ever seen.

He thinks about Ladybug and her smile, and somehow, he can’t really bring himself to compare the both of them.

Adrien clears his throat when he realizes that he’s been silent for a moment too long. “Sorry, just thinking about something. Um, do you mind summarizing the plot? I’ve had a really busy week, so I didn’t have time to read all of it,” he says sheepishly. “Don’t tell Nino.”

“Don’t worry! We’ve still got a lot of time to practice before filming,” Marinette says, and goes on to summarize the story that somehow boils down to two star-crossed lovers kept apart by the whims of fate. It’s all very tragic and angsty, and Adrien is slightly worried when he finds himself sympathizing with his character.

Now he’s just being dramatic.

He shakes his head and picks a random page to try out his lines. Somehow, he ends up reading the part where the hero (Aiden) confesses his undying love for the heroine (Marian) and asks her to marry him before they all die or something.

Scratch that, his character is the more dramatic one. Was Nino watching telenovelas when he wrote this?

When he looks up at Marinette (the fact that both the main characters’ names are all too similar to theirs is not lost on him), she coughs out something about how he’s ready for the role after all. She’s a bit red in the face, but the room starts to feel a bit warm to Adrien too anyway.

 

**003.**

The third time Adrien proposes to Marinette, it’s a bit of an inside joke.

He’s accidentally seen her diary with the heart doodles with ‘Mrs. Adrien Agreste’ all over it, and she makes him swear to never, ever use that as blackmail material against her. Even if they do happen to be dating.

“If it makes you feel any better—“ he says, trying to smother his bubbling laughter and failing. “I wouldn’t mind being called Adrien Agreste-Cheng, Princess.”

Nino has the photographic evidence.

Marinette’s face is still furiously red when she grabs his collar and leans in for a kiss.

 

**004.**

The fourth time Adrien proposes to Marinette, he thinks he’s dying.

It hurts to breathe. Scratch that, everything hurts. It feels as if his chest is burning, and when he drags his head to the side against the concrete, the smell of iron fills the air and he’s met with an ever-growing pool of his own blood.

He doesn’t see much from here, just hears the clash of weapons and Marinette’s screaming as she charges into battle without him. Standing up is the least he can do, at least to drag himself out of harm’s way—even more harm at this point, so she doesn’t have to worry about him anymore.

Dying is a slow affair, he finds. He can point the exact moment his heart starts to trip on itself. His breaths start to become ever so shallow. The world starts to blur black at the edges. His life isn’t flashing before his eyes yet. It’s at this moment that he thinks, if he’s going to die, doing it for Marinette isn’t really such a bad way to go.

But maybe he shouldn’t have underestimated the strength of Marinette’s determination.

“Chat! Chat Noir!” He hears her footsteps slamming against the street. “Adrien!”

He can feel her hands turning him over, and Adrien finds that he can breathe again. Opening his eyes to the now clear sky, he forces air down his throat and his hands feel for the stab wound on his stomach. There’s nothing there at all now. Both his skin and costume seem to have knitted themselves back together to keep his insides from falling out.

Marinette looms over him, her hair falling across her face, the sunlight strikes her eyes just so, and he can count all the freckles on her skin, but he’s already sure that she’s not a fleeting vision. The tears that are dropping onto his face feel all too real.

“You’re okay,” she grits out through a sob. “Thank goodness you’re okay.” And she scoops him into a hug that squeezes whatever air he’s recovered from his chest.

“What can I say? Cats do have nine lives,” he mumbles against her hair, savoring the warmth and having just enough presence of mind to return her hug. He pulls away weakly, managing a grin that’s probably lopsided despite the best of his efforts.

This time, he doesn’t have a concussion to use as an excuse, but even with the aftermath of the battle still clear on her face, he still thinks she’s the brightest, most beautiful person he’s ever seen, so he doesn’t bother stopping the next words that fall out of his mouth. “Marinette Dupain-Cheng, will you marry me?”

Marinette looks as if she’s been hit on the face with a train before she manages a watery laugh. “Ask me again when you haven’t just thrown yourself in front of a sword for my sake, you reckless cat.”

 

.

 

**+1**

But two months later, it’s Marinette who’s holding a ring box in front of him, and Adrien feels very confused. Because he swears that box was just in his pocket a few minutes ago, maybe an hour at the most.

“Where did you get that?” Adrien asks, patting down his tuxedo pants for the thousandth time as if it would make the box magically reappear in his pocket. There’s a lot of ring boxes in the world, right? There has to be more than one ladybug-patterned ring box lying around somewhere.

“You—er, dropped it?” Marinette’s voice is shrill, and she buries her face in her hands before blurting out everything. “Okay, so you were acting weird for a while before the party, and I thought, well, maybe it’s just the nerves. But then you were acting really _really_ weird and I’m sure you were avoiding me for a while, and then this fell out during dinner? I swear I didn’t steal it like your phone. Complete coincidence. It’s supposed to be a surprise, right? I did try to return it, you know, _secretly_.”

“Wait, so that’s why you kept bumping into me a while ago? I thought—” He sort of took it as an invitation for a secret make-out session in a dark corridor. Which they actually did. He feels his face heating up despite the cold night air in the balcony.

Marinette doesn’t look as embarrassed as he does at that. There’s a little smirk curling at her lips for a brief second. “Yeah.” She clears her throat. “So, is this the part where I ask you to marry me?”

Adrien should have known that with his luck, there was no way everything could have gone the way he planned. He couldn’t care less. Her face is set in the most earnest, determined expression he’s seen on her yet, and he falls in love with her all over again.

That’s something he doesn’t mind doing for the rest of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> for anon on tumblr who requested established ladynoir. does this count?
> 
> ooh a 4+1 fic with marriage proposals, how original. i've sunk so low into this ship that i don't even know what anymore.
> 
>  
> 
> [ tumblr](http://pallasjoannas.tumblr.com/)


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